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Wednesday of the Second Week of Advent

The prayer of the heart

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your selves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” Mt 11,28-30

For the first disciples who followed Jesus through the streets of the Palestine, to go close to him was meaning to listen and as a compensation to receive that inner peace which only those who reached  the source of the life can own. Jesus of Nazareth possessed the peace of the heart because he knew the plan which the Father had prepared for him, which he had accepted with meekness and humility, and this was his yoke, without rebelling, which he brought up to the mount Calvary. When the disciples, tired and burdened by concerns and commitments, many of which useless, were approaching him, they found the serenity of a peaceful person who had very clear his role and his purpose in this life which goes by. To meet and to stay with him meant to be helped, for induction, to know and marry his own life plan, with gentleness and humility of heart. And this was the “sweet yoke” and the “lightweight” they received, after depositing under his feet worries, other ties and other loads with which they arrived. We too, when we are tired and oppressed, have the same need to meet the Lord to know more about our plan of life, to give meaning to our days, with meekness and humility, accepting the yoke and its load, which are light because they are related to the talents we have received. How and where can we meet today the Lord to reach the springs of the life, where our project is written with clarity? We can meet him in the silence and in the inner prayer, after having given time to fall to the ground  the concerns, the fatigue and the oppression, which we gradually accumulate by the events of our life. The conversation with the Lord begins in this “prayer”, which is called “of the heart”, when we have deposited the baggage of our pride. The person who is at the beginning of the spiritual path addresses a certain kind of questions, those which are related to the great questions of the mankind: Who am I? Why am I in this world? What is the meaning of the evil, of the pain and of the death? What exists after this life? Who is God? … By the elapsing of the time, however, when the answers to these questions have been received and internalized, other questions are posed and other requests are made: “Lord, increase my faith … Let me know more about my life plan … Tell me what should I do now, on this occasion … Help me to forgive and to love … Give me the calm, the peace and the patience in the situations which I am called to live … Give me, Lord, a smile for the others and the joy for me!

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